Valverde down with calf strain, but how serious is it?

I’m willing to excuse Coop for some his other hair-brained schemes, and I’ll even give Coop a break if they didn’t know it was a muscle strain on the field. I’d almost let it slide if this was the first instance that Coop displayed an unwillingness to make tough decisions regarding the health of his players. It’s not, and I don’t think this one gets to be filed under “Learning the Ropes.” That file is already full.

i think we are all forgetting, that in grand scheme of things, a baseball manager doesn’t do all that much, in terms of winning and losing games. strategy, etc has little to nothing to do ultimately with how games are won and lost. i can understand concern over his leaving in an injured player, but beyond that we’re just spinning our wheels when it comes to complaining about Coop

Minor correction: Cecil Cooper wanted to manage. He would have left the Astros if he had a chance to manage elsewhere before this opportunity came about.. He was very excited to become the interim manager and then the permanent manager. He (and Phil Garner when Garner was manager) actively promoted Cooper as manager material.

P.S. -Jose Cruz wants to manage too; and he would be a good one.

Closer Jose Valverde was equally resourceful while pitching in and out of a bases-loaded jam in the ninth inning to seal the victory despite a bruised right ankle and pulled right calf muscle.

I would assume the bruise was more likely causing his “hopping” around. If his pulled muscle was bad enough to cause that kind of reaction, it may be longer than a day for recovery.

I still don’t think he should have been allowed to pitch with the muscle strain because you just make them much worse that way. The strain is different than just having the bruise or when he took a ball to the face because it’s something you can definitely make worse by pitching through it, whereas the other injuries are what they are.